Our itinerary:
July 28, 2024 – Sunday – Board Celebrity Eclipse, Aqua class stateroom 1509, Bayonne, New Jersey
Departing 4:00PM
4:45-5:50PM Cruise past Statue Of Liberty
July 29 – 30, 2024 – Monday – Tuesday – Sea Days
July 31, 2024 – Arrive Wednesday 8:30AM – Kings Wharf, Bermuda
August 1, 2024 – Thursday – Kings Wharf, Bermuda
August 2, 2024 – Friday – Kings Wharf, Bermuda, departing 4:00 PM
August 3, 2024 – Saturday – Sea Day
August 4, 2024 – Sunday Arrive Bayonne, NJ 7:00 AM and Disembark
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Tuesday, August 6, 2024 – Happy Birthday Dave!
This is “The Rest of the Story” and final post!Dave and I spent his Birthday together! Very together- like inches apart in the car! Our morning was spent creeping through Atlanta during rush hour. We finally arrived in Tampa at TPA about 5:20PM. We returned the rental car and found our luggage easier than we expected (Those ugly ribbons on the handle paid off!) although there were lots of unclaimed luggage. Our luggage had arrived Sunday without us. We retrieved our car from economy parking, and finally headed for Englewood about 6:25 PM. We drove 1,423 miles from Newark to Tampa, and another almost 100 miles from Tampa to Englewood, so over 1,500 miles.
Since it was Daves birthday, I kept bugging him about what he’d like for dinner. He decided on Thai, but our new favorite Thai place in Englewood would close before we could get there. So we ordered takeout to be picked upon our way home from our old favorite Thai restaurant in Venice. By the time we got home, it was almost 8:30PM.
The End.
Monday, August 5, 2024 – Uneventful pretty much. Dave was concerned about driving home if we drove down the coast on interstate 95, so we headed west to Chattanooga, TN and picked up Interstate 75 to head to TPA to drop off our rental car and hopefully pick up our luggage. We did run into some construction that slowed us down.
We drove just past Chattanooga and spent the night in Ringgold, Georgia. Apparently Dolly Pardon was married in Ringgold. Not much choice for dinner at 10:00PM, but we picked up a cheap bottle of wine at Circle K and some gourmet food from Wendy’s 😂😂😂.
Sunday, August 4, 2024 – I have to document our sad story…so here goes… We had a Celebrity transfer from the ship to the airport. The transfer was supposed to leave the ship at 9:30, but they booted us off early at 8:30, and we sat on the bus until almost 9:30 waiting for the bus to leave. So we were at the airport very early for our 2:10 flight. We watched the monitors, and there were lots of delays. The flight before ours was going to Chicago and it was oversold by 19 seats. They were offering hotel vouchers and $1,500 flight credit to take the flight the next day. We did not get such a sweet deal.
While waiting to board our flight, we got a text from United that our luggage arrived early in Tampa. Dave and I were thinking that’s great as we wouldn’t have to wait at the carousel for our luggage to come off the plane – it would be sitting there waiting for us. Because of delays of arriving flights due to weather coming into Newark, we boarded about an hour late, and then sat on the runway another hour waiting for weather to clear and a slot to open so our plane could leave. Finally about 4:10, 2 hours late, we were in the air. As we flew over Charlotte, the pilot made an announcement – it would be unsafe to land in Tampa, so he was taking us back to Newark. So looking around at 200 other people who wanted to get to Tampa, I’m wondering how this is going to work to get a flight change, and when. We got back to the around 7:00pm and there was no United people at the gate to help us. There’s a QR code to scan for travel assistance, which we did, two different times and waited for someone to come on the line to help us which never happened. Dave called a United number that he had but no one answered. A gentleman was able to connect with United and got placed on standby for the last flight out, he kindly gave me the number he called and I finally got someone. We told her our flight was canceled and we needed to rebook, and all our luggage was in Tampa…so she wants to connect me with the United baggage people! I said No! No! We need to rebook our flight and even gave her the flight number for that last flight. She said OK to give her a minute and then she would mail the change to us. 36 minutes later….she comes back on the line and says, Sorry, that flight has been cancelled. She lied to us! We walked over to the information board, and saw the flight was still listed. We decided to go to the gate that last flight was leaving from and see if we could get on a standby list. It was originally scheduled for 9:30PM, but was delayed until after 11:00PM. We keep trying to find a United person to talk to, but there are no agents anymore- everything is online. We finally find a United person who is arriving to work another flight, and she tries very hard to help us, but says she couldn’t help us until the gate opened for the Tampa flight. So we’re checking online and talking to other people – one guy was in a party of 6 and they would only put 3 of the 6 on the standby list. We saw there were 9 seats available, and lots of people already on standby, so we decided it was a lost cause.
Next, we decided to rent a car. We thought we had a pretty decent deal from Hertz until we found out they added like $400 or $500 for a one way rental. We went online and tried to find the best deal, and thought Avis looked good, renting a Toyota Camry. I kept the page on my iPad open while Dave saw an Enterprise desk with no line – Dave found out it was because they had no cars for one way rentals. So we booked the Camry and stood in a very long line at the Avis counter. There were probable 20 or 25 people in line and only one person working! After probably another hour, a few more people started working the counter. Finally they sent some of us over to the “preferred” customer counter, where there had been 3 or 4 people the whole time and very few customers. We finally get to the front of the line and find out the car we rented was a Budget rental, not Avis. The Budget line was really long, and before my heart dropped to the ground, I noticed these “preferred” customer representatives had Avis AND Budget on their shirts, so while it took two representatives to do our reservation, we finally got our car! Yea! But, it was not a Toyota Camry – but fortunately a full sized Chevy. We had declined purchasing the EZ pass for tolls option, but went we got to the first toll booth, a ticket did not come out of the dispenser….then the gate opened and it said “thank you for using EZ Pass”. So, we either lucked out or we will get a bill later. We think one of the roads was “Toll by Plate”, so we are kinda expecting another bill from Budget/Avis anyway.
By now it is probably 11:30PM, and we just want to get away from Newark and feel like we are making progress to get home. We drove about 75 miles and spend the night in Mt. Laurel, NJ. All our clothes are in Tampa, so we will be wearing the same outfits for 3 days 😳.
Saturday, August 3, 2024 – Our last day onboard. Not much happening. We did preliminary packing, listened to Robert Neary who did the Neil Diamond Show last night. He was doing a performance in the foyer of the ship. Checking on the status of the storm. We’ve already received notice from United of delays. We are packing with the assumption we may not get home tomorrow, so leaving an extra change of clothes at the top of the suitcase.
Friday, August 2, 2024 – Today is our last day in Bermuda and everything is still closed for the Cup match and celebration of Mary Prince Day. I found this description on Wikipedia:
“Mary Prince (c. 1 October 1788 – after 1833) was the first black woman to publish an autobiography of her experience as a slave, born in the colony of Bermuda to an enslaved family of African descent. After being sold a number of times and being moved around the Caribbean, she was brought to England as a servant in 1828, and later left her enslaver.
Prince was illiterate, but while she was living in London she dictated her life story to Susanna Strickland, a young lady living in the home of the secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, 1823–1838. Strickland wrote down Mary Princes’ slave narrative which was published as “The History of Mary Prince” in 1831, the first account of the life of a Black enslaved woman to be published in the United Kingdom. This first-hand description of the brutalities of enslavement, published at a time when slavery was still legal in Bermuda and British Caribbean and colonies, had a galvanizing effect on the British anti-slavery movement.”
We decided to visit the “National Museum of Bermuda” which is very close to where our ship is docked. We are not big fans of museums, but it was open when everything else was closed.
The museum is located in the Royal Navy Dockyard which is surrounded by stone walls like a fortress. It seems the dockyard was built as a result of the American Independence from Britain, and identified as a strategic location for a naval base. There were exhibits from the many shipwrecks around Bermuda, including the Sea Venture which resulted in the colonization of Bermuda.
There is an area called Dolphins Quest where Dolphins were in a pond area and it looked like the dolphins were being treated and/or cared for.
Sitting up above the other buildings was the Commissioner’s House which was once home to the civilian commissioner of the Dockyard. It is a pretty big house consisting of 3 stories with a nice veranda on each of the top two floors. It was built in the 1820’s and is the world’s first prefabricated cast-iron residential building.
It contained many exhibits regarding slavery as slaves were brought to Bermuda to work in agriculture and other occupations. According to the exhibits, besides slaves brought from Africa, many natives Indians were also brought to Bermuda as slaves, as well as natives from the Caribbean islands.
The exhibits also noted how Portuguese from the Azores came to Bermuda and they were discriminated against, too, as well as the discrimination slaves faced.
After visiting the museum, we went back to the ship for lunch as we have an early departure from Bermuda. The Norwegian Joy leaves at 3:00 and we leave at 4:00, but all aboard is 3:30. So about 3:40, we hear an announcement that they are looking for one person. Again, about 3:50 another announcement is made looking for the same person. Soon afterwards we see a lady running towards the ship. I have to give her credit – she was running a long way! Just after she came onboard, we get another announcement that someone is sick and the ship is waiting for an ambulance. I’m thinking I hope the lady running for the ship didn’t have a heart attack. We were watching from the balcony and finally we hear the siren from the ambulance. It seems like it takes forever. We watch and they bring out a couple of suitcases and finally bring someone off the ship on a stretcher. It looked like a man, and a woman was following. As soon as the ambulance closed its doors, the ship backed away from the dock. As it turned out, we left only 17 minutes later than scheduled. Even more interesting, I could watch the ambulance leaving the port area, and it was not using its lights or siren…
We relaxed for awhile, then showered and went to our happy hour, then the performance in the theater. Tonight’s show was a Neil Diamond show and he sang many of Neil Diamond’s songs as well as telling some stories about him. After the show, we went to dinner in Blu. It is formal night, so we had lobster which was very good. I even had desert which was baked Alaska, but Dave abstained. Maybe he is starting his post cruise diet early!
We talked to some people we had met earlier, and they said Horseshoe Beach was a zoo! It was so busy people couldn’t even find a place to sit. People were going and then coming right back to the ship because there were so many people. I would have liked to have gone to see the pink sand, but it looks like we made the right decision – with the holidays and two ship in port, it was too busy. Next time…
We stopped in a lounge after dinner to hear some music, but did not care for it so we decided to go back to our room. There we found chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of champagne from Tuscan where we had the horrible dinner last night. Sorry guys, you are still getting a bad review!
Not much picture taking today, either.
Thursday, August 1, 2024 – we hustled to make the 10:00 ferry to Hamilton and were the last to board. Arriving in Hamilton, we wandered around and everything was closed – like everything! Today and tomorrow are National Holidays so everything is closed. August 1 is Emancipation Day and August 2 is Mary Prince Day. In conjunction with these two national holidays, they have a cricket cup match and the whole country is celebrating the Cup Match. This is the explanation I found:
“The Cup Match holiday is a time-honoured celebration of Bermuda’s unique culture and history. This memorable two-day holiday brings Bermuda together to commemorate their heritage and enjoy the company of loved ones centered around the historic match and friendly rivalry between Somerset and St. George’s in the Cup Match Classic.
The anticipation for the match can be felt from east to west, with residents and businesses showing their allegiance to one side or another through vibrant displays of red & blue or blue & blue.
The foundation on which this holiday was formed lies in the abolition of slavery in Bermuda and the beginning of a new era of freedom. you for all that you do so that we can enjoy this special time of year.”
So we picked the absolutely wrong time to visit Bermuda. We did visit a cathedral that was open, The Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity. Actually, all the other churches were closed!
On our way to catch the 11:45 ferry back to the ship, we did see one restaurant that was open. But it was near the ferry, and the only business we saw open. We were not hungry, so we took the ferry back to the ship which is docked in the Royal Dockyard.
With everything closed, there wasn’t much picture taking!
We got back on the ship, got my iPad, and our mission was to find a restaurant with Wi-Fi so I could upload my blog and have lunch. Being a bit fussy, we checked out several restaurants- some only had outdoor seating (and it is hot), some were too loud with music, and some were closed. Finally we found Cafe Amici, which is in the dockyard mall. Dave had a deep fried chicken Parmesan appetizer, and I had the fish sandwich with wahoo on raisin bread again. After eating we checked out the mall, which was open! It had all the usual souvenir stuff which we don’t buy. So we walked back to the ship, showered and went to our happy hour. Dave didn’t like the menu in Blu, so we moved up our reservation in Tuscan from Saturday night to tonight. So after our showers, we went to our happy hour and then to the show in the theater. The show was a cabaret with songs from various theater productions. We recognized many of the songs, so it was very entertaining. After the show, we went to Tuscan, a specialty restaurant. Unfortunately it was not a good experience. We felt they were rushing us – they brought our appetizer before we had our wine, they tried to bring our entree before we were done with our appetizers, which we refused. The wine sommelier could not find our saved bottle of wine from the night before. When we got our entrees, Daves lobster pasta didn’t have much lobster (very few slivers) and my medium rare steak was medium. We were just totally disappointed with the whole experience which we paid extra for!
After the dinner fiasco, we went to bed!
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 – We had an announcement from the captain that Thursday and Friday are National Holidays in Bermuda and there may be closings. Maybe we picked the wrong week to cruise to Bermuda.
We had a 10:30 reservation to do a walking tour with the Town Crier in Hamilton, Bermuda, but decided to stay in bed a little longer. I don’t think we could have made it to Hamilton by 10:30 anyway. There are two shipped docked where we are – ours and the Norwegian Joy. The Norwegian Joy looks bigger than ours. There were lots of people trying to catch the ferry and take the bus to get to Hamilton. Norwegian has a ferry to transport some of their passengers, which is a nice bonus for those passengers. So, we left the ship a little past 9:00, stopped at the tourist info center and bought a two-day transportation pass. We decided to take the bus to St. George, which is the other end of the island. We have to change buses in Hamilton, and it takes longer than the ferry, but we figured we would get a little tour of the island. Arriving in St. George, we realize there really isn’t a lot to see! St. George is not a big town.
The bus let us off outside a nice little park, Sommers Garden. There was a column commemorating the settlement of Bermuda, honoring Sir George Sommers. Although Bermuda was sighted by the Spaniard Juan de Bermudez in 1505, it was not settled until the chance wrecking of the English ship Sea Venture in 1609. This was the flagship of Sir George Somersault, leading an English relief fleet from Plymouth England to the new and struggling colony in Jamestown, Virginia. The survivors built two new ships on Bermuda and after 10 months continued to Jamestown, where they rescued the settlers from starvation. The Sea Venture wreck sparked fervent English interest in Bermuda and led to official colonization three years later.
Bermuda is the oldest colony still under British rule. It consists of 121 islands, the closest land is North Carolina, 650 miles away.
Next we saw the town hall, with two people dressed in period costumes outside…soon, we found out why!
Walking a little further, onto “Ordinance Island”, we saw the two people in period costumes that we had seen earlier, recreating punishing a woman for talking too much! The woman continued to chew out the man, and then the man would order her to be dunked! She continued mouthing off to him and was dunked 5 or 6 times!
On Ordinance Island was another statue of Sir George Sommers!
Leaving Ordinance Island, we saw a multicolored fish, but the picture isn’t the best….hopefully you can make him out!
We walked around the town which is only a couple of blocks. There were placards on many buildings which described when they were built and who owned them. One was apparently a museum showing period furnishings, but it was closed. So, we had lunch. I had a fish sandwich which is a typical island food. It is fried wahoo served on raisin bread! It was good.
We walked around some more, reading plaques on the buildings, and then headed to the ferry to catch the last ferry at 4:00 to the Royal Dockyard where our ship is docked.
Once onboard, we were done for the day. The heat wore us out. We got some cold drinks, took showers, missed our happy hour, but went for a glass of wine (Dave not me). Then a late dinner.
Tuesday, July 30, 2024 – We are watching the tropics with a possible storm brewing. Englewood is currently in the “cone”, but the storm is still several days away.
We had breakfast in Blu, booked our transfer from the ship to the airport, went to a morning wine tasting, Lunch, some relaxation in the relaxation lounge, some trivia (which we were only fair), some walking to build up those steps,Etc. Not very busy today – but it is a sea day! We showered and dressed and went to happy hour. After happy hour we visited Effy, but they did not have a fabulous price on my $35,000 necklace. Then we went to a lounge to listen to music…just as the music stopped! We went to dinner in Blu and had some really good filet mignon after Dave sent his back his once for being well done! Decided to skip the show which was the aerobatics couple….but by the time we finished dinner, it was almost 10:00. So…since we want to be up and ready for Bermuda tomorrow, we just returned to our stateroom and went to bed.
Monday, July 29, 2024 – We stayed in bed too long and missed breakfast! So we had an early lunch. After lunch we went to watch Scattagories. Because we had never played, we just watched to get the idea of how the game is played. It is similar to boggle except you are given categories, then have to think of a word based on a letter given by the moderator. We may try it next time it’s offered.
Next up was a trivia. There were 3 different trivia’s – the first was “True or False”, which I did pretty good at. It is a group event where everyone as a group moves to one side of the floor or the other, depending on whether you think the question is true or false. At one point I was down to the last 3 people – where I lost on the question whether Marilyn Monroe was born with 6 ties on one foot. I guessed true, but it was false ☹️. The second trivia was on music from the ‘00’s….we sat that one out. The last trivia was general knowledge. We didn’t win, but we were pretty satisfied with our final score.
We went to our happy hour and then to the show in the theater- “Rock!”. While it was entertaining, I was disappointed that I didn’t recognize more of the songs. After the show we had reservations in Murano, one of the specialty restaurants. Dave was disappointed with the choice of appetizers. He had a pear in puff pastry with Roquefort dressing, but felt the Roquefort overpowered everything else. He also tried pork belly as he never had it before. He said it tasted like pork (duh!). He had lobster for his entree, which was a table side preparation.
His desert was a chocolate cake with coffee ice cream (even though he asked to have the coffee ice cream replaced with vanilla, it didn’t happen). He thought the chocolate cake was more like a mousse. I had a scallop in puff pastry and a mushroom soup for my starters, and Mediterranean Sea bass for my entree. I had a medley of gelato for dessert – chocolate, pistachio, mango and strawberry.
After our 2.5 hour dinner, off to bed!
Sunday, July 28, 2024 – Paid for shuttle from hotel to cruise port about 10:30AM. We were able to checkin, but were then directed to seats to wait to actually get on the ship. Once on the ship, we could drop off our hand luggage in the room, but the rooms were not ready until 1:30. We could see a long view of the Statue of Liberty from our stateroom. We could also see a partial view of a sculpture titled the “Struggle Against World Terrorism”. This is a 10 story sculpture that was given to the United States as an official gift from the Russian government as a memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It stands at the end of the former Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, New Jersey. Ceremonial groundbreaking occurred on September 16, 2005, in a ceremony attended by Vladimir Putin!
We explored the ship, checked out the exercise room (doubtful we’ll ever see the inside of it again, but maybe), our restaurant “Blu” and the bars. We had some lunch and wandered some more. Just after all aboard at 3:00PM, the captain made an announcement welcoming everyone onboard and saying we would depart at 4:00. After wandering a bit more, and Dave getting a bon voyage margarita, we went back to our room and our welcoming bottle of champagne arrived as well as our luggage. It was about 3:50 and we noticed the ship was moving! So we left port early.
This cruise was billed as a sail by the Statue of Liberty. We could see the Statue of Liberty from our stateroom, but it was a long view. The captain did sail by the Statue of Liberty and did a 360° turn so everyone could get a good look. We sat on our balcony and drank our bottle of champagne as we got our view.
We stopped by Effy Jewelry store and I tried on a $35,000 necklace! Beautiful, but not in my budget! Dave said I’d have to sell my Porsche!
We went to the Celebrity happy hour for our free drink and then to dinner in “Blu”. Our waiter recommended a “Lobster Salad on Soba Noodles” as an appetizer which Dave and I both had. It was very good! Unfortunately, Dave lost part of the veneer on one tooth when he bit into a bread crisp. At least it’s not painful, just irritating. We both had beef short ribs for our entree which was very good, and we both had a chocolate dessert with mousse and cherries. Too much food! We are going to have to do better.
Saturday, July 27, 2024 – I do not anticipate much to post about until we reach Bermuda on Wednesday, July 31.
This morning we got up early and tried not to disturb Erin who was still sleeping. Unfortunately, I think I make more noise when I’m trying to be quiet. Our plan was to be out of the house by 7:10am and on the road by 7:15am, and we were right on schedule. We had a flight out of Tampa and are spending the night near the Newark, New Jersey airport. It is a Hampton Inn and Suites at Elizabeth, NJ.
The hotel has a shuttle from the airport, but it was a bit of a hassle. We weren’t sure where to catch the shuttle. Dave tried calling the hotel and was unable to connect with anyone for several tries. The phone number would ring a few times and then he’d get a busy signal. Finally, I think it was his fourth or fifth try, he finally reached someone and they said they would advise the driver that we were waiting. We got to the hotel about 3:00 and checked in. We had not had lunch, and “The Mills at Jersey Gardens” mall is about a five minute walk away. It is a huge mall, and I think it was bigger than Woodfield in Schaumburg, IL. This place was huge and it was packed with people, who had multiple shopping bags! As we walked to the entrance, we could not believe how many cars were in the parking lot! Dave had read there was an Applebees in the mall, so that was our plan for a late lunch and early dinner. I ordered a cocktail, which never came. But otherwise we felt the prices were higher than Florida and while the food was good, maybe not as good as our local Applebees.
After we ate, we walked back to the hotel and chilled for awhile. Then we decided to have a cocktail before hitting the sack early. We walked to a Ruby Tuesday’s which is next door to the hotel. We each had one drink and decided that was enough. On the way out, I missed a step down and took a huge fall ☹️. Fortunately no broken bones or serious injuries, but I’m sure it looked pretty bad. My forward motion was stopped by my head hitting a parked car, and a bystander said the car moved when my head hit it. Dave said I put a dent in the car. I just wanted to get away from there and nurse my (very) few scrapes.
It is now a couple hours later, and after a shower, I’m feeling pretty much back to normal, but thinking I may be sore tomorrow.
That was the end of our exciting first day. Tomorrow, Sunday, we paid for a shuttle to take us from the hotel to the ship. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are sea days, so not much to write about. Sunday evening when we leave port, we are suppose to cruise past the Statue of Liberty. Hopefully we will get a picture. I do not have internet on the ship, but I bought a data eSIM for Bermuda, so probably will not be able to post until Wednesday.